swoop

Etymology

It is, apparently through a dialect development, inherited from Middle English swopen (“to sweep”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} inherited from Old English swāpan (“to sweep, brandish, dash, rush”),^[7][3][8][9] from Proto-Germanic *swaipaną.^[10][11][7] The Old English verb is cognate with Old Saxon swēpan (“to clean, sweep”), Old High German sweifan (“to swing around, coil”), whence German schweifen (“to curve, rove, ramble”), and Old Norse sveipa (“to sling, throw, wrap”).^{[3][9][12][10]} Barnhart traces the Germanic verb to Proto-Indo-European *sweib-,^[3] while Etymonline thinks it perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *swei- (“to bend, turn”).^[7] The OED, Etymonline and Barnhart suggest that the spelling with a double o was influenced by Scots soop (“to sweep”), also used in northern English dialect, from Old Norse sópa.^[2][7][3] Skeat explained the vowel instead as the open o of Middle English becoming close after w.^[13][14] The noun is from the verb,^[4][2][3] although the OED finds the source of its oldest sense, a blow or stroke, unclear.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

To move or walk in a stately manner, as with trailing garments; to sweep along: 1566, in Drant's translation of Horace.^[2][3][7][9] The noun is older, recorded from 1544 in the now obsolete sense "a blow, a stroke".^[2][3][4]

Semantic evolution

The stately sense died out in the early 17th century.^[2][4] From 1600 the verb meant to sweep something up or away,^[2][4] and in 1638 it is first recorded for pouncing on and seizing prey, as a bird of prey does;^[2][3] Etymonline takes this sense from the noun.^[7] The noun's sense of a bird of prey's sudden pounce is first found in Shakespeare's Macbeth (1605), in the line "At one fell swoope?",^[7][3][9] and Johnson (1755) defined the noun by it, as the fall of a bird of prey upon its quarry.^[15] The old sense "blow" survived in fencing.^[7][2] Hoad dates the modern sense "come down suddenly upon" to the 18th century:^[16] the OED records it from 1797, of troops,^[2] the matching noun from 1824,^[2] and the intransitive sense of a bird making a sweeping descent through the air from 1837.^[2] The general senses of Middle English swopen passed to sweep.^[17] In Gloucestershire dialect a swoop was a gulp or large draught,^[18] and in American Black slang swoop meant to move or leave quickly.^[19]

Timeline

• 1544 – noun, a blow or stroke (obsolete by 1711).^[2][4]
• 1566 – verb, to move in a stately manner, to sweep along (obsolete by 1622).^[2][3]
• 1600 – to sweep up, away or off.^[2]
• 1605 – noun, the sudden pounce of a bird of prey, in Macbeth.^[7][3][9] The OED dates its first quotation before 1616, and the phrase at one fell swoop to 1612, in Webster.^[2]
• 1638 – to pounce upon, to seize with a sweeping movement.^[2][3]
• 1797 – to come down suddenly upon, as troops do.^[2]
• 1824 – noun, a sudden descent by a body of troops.^[2]
• 1837 – intransitive, of a bird, to make a rapid sweeping descent.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To pounce or come down suddenly with a sweeping movement, usually with down, on or upon: The hawk swooped on a field mouse.^[12][9][2]
2. To make a sudden raid or attack: Police swooped on the warehouse at dawn.^[9][2]
3. To seize or scoop up suddenly, often with up, away or off: He swooped the child up into his arms.^[12][4][2]
4. To move fast with a sweeping motion; to sweep or brush past.^[9]
5. (obsolete) To walk in a stately way, as in trailing robes (1566–1622).^[2][9][4]

Noun

1. The act of swooping; a swift descent, especially of a bird of prey on its quarry.^[12][9][2]
2. A sudden descent or attack, as by troops or police.^[2][4][9]
3. at one fell swoop or in one fell swoop: all at once, in a single action.^[2][9]
4. (obsolete) A blow or stroke (1544–1711).^[2][4]

Word family

• swooper

Related words

• sweep
• swathe

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
11. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
12. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
17. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
18. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
19. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com